...The Future of the Euro Zone Name Institution affiliation The Future of the Euro Zone The Euro zone came together on 1st January 1991. It's composed of nineteen countries within Europe namely: Cyprus, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. The members of the euro zone are the main the main determinants of the success or failure of the Euro. The decisions made by these made by these respective governments as well as the relations of these countries to each other shape the future of the whole region. The euro zone crisis which started in 2009 was triggered by the withdrawal of investors in the Greece (Nordvig, 2013, p. 7). The credit crunch in Greece later led to the collapse of the housing markets in both Ireland and Spain which later on created a drift in the financial markets of the members in the Euro zone. The euro crisis pointed out major flaws in the European Union’s Economic Monitory Union policies (Dăianu, D'Adda, Basevi, & Kumar, 2014). The turbulence came to an end in 2013 making the region fairly stable and calm seems to have resumed in 2014. In 2013, Greece got an excess budget, lowered the interest rates of their bond, and got a positive gross domestic product (Dăianu, D'Adda, Basevi, & Kumar, 2014). Other countries in the euro zone have also recovered and trends promise a brighter future. The ability of some countries to bounce back...
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...now, 47 years later, the euro is a fact, with a monetary system that prevails over all the countries of the euro-zone, with a policy that was originally based on satisfying growth, low to no inflation, low unemployment and lower and more stable prices, as well as elimination of conversion fees, deeper financial markets, and lower volatility therein. It has been successful in accomplishing most of those objectives, even though some are openly disputed. Whether the euro as a whole is successful remains to be seen, since the question if the euro-zone in itself is suitable for monetary union is left largely unanswered. Two criteria are met with, and two are not. The key success factor now and in the future will be the policy of the ECB, which is dual; fight of inflation at the expense of economic growth or vice versa. How long the policy of the ECB can count on the trust of its members depends largely on movements in the world economy, the financial markets and the ability of policy makers to shroud the efforts in political correctness. ii. Table of contents i. Executive Summary p. 2 ii. Table of Contents p. 3 iii. Preface p. 4 1. Euro History p. 6 2. The European Monetary System p. 7 3. The early nineties currency crisis p. 8 4. Convergence program p. 10 5. Launch of the euro as a currency p. 12 6. The benefits of the euro p. 16 7. European Central Bank Policy and promises p. 23 8. The future of the European Monetary...
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... using the Euro as a functional currency. Contents Contents 2 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 2. INTRODUCTION 3 2.1. HISTORY OF INSOMNIA PLC 3 2.2. SCOPE OF BUSINESS 3 2.3. CURRENT EXPOSURES 4 2.3.1. TRANSACTION EXPOSURE 4 2.3.2. ECONOMIC EXPOSURE 4 2.3.3. TRANSLATION EXPOSURE 4 2.4. HEDGING 5 3. EFFECTS OF UK JOINING EMU ON INSOMNIA PLC 5 3.1. COST SAVINGS ON CROSS-BORDER TRANSACTIONS 5 3.2. STABILITY OF PRICES 6 3.3. PRICE TRANSPARENCY 6 3.4. OTHER EFFECTS 6 4. USING EURO AS A FUNCTIONAL CURRENCY OF INSOMNIA PLC 7 5. CONCLUSION 8 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY 9 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It has been found that UK joining EMU as well as accepting the Euro as a functional currency will bring more benefits to Insomnia plc than staying outside of the Economic and Monetary Union or continuing using Pound Sterling as a functional currency. Both of the choices will decrease the currency exchange rate fluctuation risk which was found to be the most significant to the company. Analysis were based mainly on academic articles, European Central Bank (ECB) publishing’s, and International Accounting Standards (IASs). 2. INTRODUCTION “The Economic and Monetary Union is an agreement between participating European nations to share a single currency, the Euro and a single economic policy with set conditions of fiscal responsibility. There are currently 27 member-states...
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...credit rating agencies fitch, standard & poor's and moody's have cut Greece's sovereign credit rating, the debt crisis in Greece officially kicked off. However, when joining the EU, Greece saw himself was far away from the two standards related. This was not a good thing of Greece and the Euro zone. Especially when the euro first came out and then began to depreciate. Greece would then turn to the U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs for assist. Goldman Sachs then design a set of currency swaps for Greece in order to cover up a sum of up to 1 billion Euros public debt, which made the Greek conform to the standard of Euro members. In addition, Goldman Sachs designed for Greece a variety of ways to accumulate capital and at the same time they did not lead to rising debt. Such as the national lottery and aviation tax income in the future as a mortgage, in exchange for cash. This kind of mortgage now became a sale in statistics instead of debt. In other words, it became the securitization of bank creditor's rights. The root cause of the debt crisis in Greece was that the country's economic competitiveness was relatively weak, economic development level was relatively low in the Euro zone countries and economic support mainly relied on tourism. After the outbreak of the financial crisis, foreigners were not willing to travel aboard, which impacted Greece significantly. In addition, the Greek...
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...“The euro was a bad idea from the start. Now it is only a matter of time before the Eurozone falls apart.” Introduction: The international financial crisis in United States in 2008 is not over, then the sovereign debt crisis broke out in Euro Zone, the world economy is going through a difficult period of adjustment, especially euro area reached the point of exhaustion. According to this, some economists hold opinion that the Euro Zone was a bad idea from the start, now it is only a matter of time before the Euro Zone falls apart. This essay aims to analyze the positive and negative effects of Euro and finally to illustrate that the existence of the Euro Zone is necessary and correct. The advantages for the Euro Zone members Firstly, the most significant advantage is that the unified currency will greatly promote the mobility of goods and factors of production between the member states in European, which will further increase the resource allocate efficiency, create a robust competitive environment. Nowadays, the openness between euro members is increasing rapidly. According to the statistics of World Bank in 2011, the mutual exports between EU members accounts for 10%-25% of its output. In addition to this, the use of euro will reduce the costs in international trade among EU countries and transaction costs for collecting, processing, and analyzing the foreign exchange rates. Moreover, although there is a unified market within the European Union before the Euro Zone has been...
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...Views on The World Financial Crisis: Will It Continue To Deepen? Introduction The Great Recession of the 21st Century (Wesel, 2010), which began in 2007, has affected the entire world economy; admittedly, some countries have been hit harder than others but few nations can really say that they have been entirely spared from the crisis. What is more, the devastating repercussions of the financial crisis can still be observed to this day, more than five years since it first began, as numerous countries around the globe are still struggling to get back on track. The road to recovery from the financial crisis has been more difficult than initially anticipated and, with the dawn of a new year, it is still hard to say whether things will start looking better for the world economy or not. The question on everybody’s mind is whether the world financial crisis will continue to deepen or not. Background Though still a somewhat a highly debated matter, the onset of the world financial crisis can be pinpointed to 7 August 2007, when BNP Paribas terminated withdrawals from three hedge funds, on grounds of a complete lack of liquidity (Elliot, 2012). For the two years that followed this incident, the world economy was on a continuous downward spiral. Economies around the globe started to slow down, some faster than others, stock markets began to drop, international trade declined, and credit tightened. In the United Kingdom for example, the catalyst for the economic crisis that engulfed...
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...The Euro Crisis According to Wikipedia (2012), the Euro Zone is comprised of 17 members that have accepted the euro as their only method of payment for goods and services. Monetary policy and management of inflation levels is governed by the ECB (European Central Bank) which consists of a president and board originating from central banks within the area. Since the late 2000's the Euro zone has experienced financial troubles mainly resulting from the varying degrees of difference between fiscal and monetary policy within each country. The majority of the debt can be attributed to the increase in both public and government debt around the globe as well as the arising debt within the euro zone. Some countries were noted for their involvement in the property crisis while other countries including Greece developed most of their financial obligations from increased public sector wages and pension contributions at an unsustainable level. As the desire for higher yielding investments expanded, many investors sought global markets as those offered by the U.S. Treasury. Norbert Walter (2012) argues that different growth rates, employment levels and unit labor costs have attributed to the euro crisis leading to heightened risk premiums and increased capital flights to those with lower risk assessments. Trade imbalances resulted from rising labor costs within several countries as well as accumulation of trade surpluses between those with the same currency that prevented appreciation...
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...round of strike activity, economic development worse. Until February 2012, Greece, Germany and France and other countries still rely on rescue loans to survive. In addition to Greece, the financial situation of Portugal, Ireland and Spain and other countries also attracted attention from investors, European countries sovereign credit rating was lowered. Greece was just entering the euro zone. According to the provisions of some countries of the European Community signed in 1992 "Maastricht Treaty", the European Economic Monetary Union member states must meet two key standards, namely the budget deficit it can not exceed 3 percent of GDP, the debt ratio below 60% of gross domestic product. However, the accession of Greece just to see yourself far away from these two criteria. This alliance Greece and the euro zone is not a good thing. Especially in the euro began to depreciate as soon as they come out of the time. Then he turned to the Greek American investment bank "Goldman Sachs." Goldman Greece to design a "currency swaps" way for the Greek government to cover up the sum of up to 1 billion euros of public debt, so that Greece in the book in...
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...Case #1: The Euro Zone and Sovereign Debt Crisis - 1 - * Fiscal mismanagement in the 1990s and the following decade; * Various forms of statistical tweaking to meet the criteria for joining the euro zone. To lower the deficit, many government expenses were kept off its official books. To lower inflation, prices for government-supplied goods such as electricity and water were frozen and high-priced items were removed from the consumer price index calculations; * A major part of Greece’s ballooning debt was the government’s inability to collect taxes. Also, wages paid to Greek public sector employees had doubled in the last decade. - 2 - One major consequence of the monetary union was that European banks became more relaxed about holding cross-border debt. This resulted in rapid growth in the banking sector and increased exposure to the deficit countries in southern Europe. To address the sovereign debt crisis, European Stabilization Mechanism (ESM) allowed the European Commission to raise funds by issuing bonds that using its own budget as collateral and then forwarding those funds on to struggling nations. European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) issued bonds and distributed the proceeds to the euro zone countries which in need of the funds. The IMF model determines the interest rate. The advantage is that if one country defaulted, the other countries that were expected to contribute funds to cover the shortfall. The sovereign debt crisis had made Germany...
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...How will the Euro crisis affect the economy of China? Table of Contents Introduction...…………………………………………………………………… 2 The formation and evolution of the Euro zone crisis….…………………………3 The serious relationship in trading and investment filed between China and Europe ………………………………………………………….………………………..9 The influence of Euro zone crisis on China economy……..……………………10 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………15 Bibliography………….…………………………………………………………16 How will the Euro crisis affect the economy of China? Many economists now are analyzing the Euro zone crisis. As the biggest trading partner to China, how the Euro zone crisis affects China’s economy cannot be ignored. No matter the decision makers of the enterprises or the decision making department of the government, all need foresight to evaluate the risk and influence of the crisis and prepare the answer before that happens. This paper will provide some analysis and strategic thinking about the influence of the Euro zone crisis on China. Introduction: On August 25th, 2011, the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, came to visit China. According to the market prediction, the purpose of his visit was come to further persuade China to purchase European bonds, to support the recovery of Euro zone. The official media of the Chinese government reported that, the chairman Hu at that time expressed two points about China’s attitudes to President Sarkozy. First of all, China cared about the influence...
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...bailouts from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the loan bailouts have eased short term liquidity problems, Greece still remained in financial turmoil which may even deteriorate. This research paper aims to explore the history behind the Greek debt crisis, the implications it has globally and on South Africa as well as the lessons that can be learnt from the crisis. Origins of the Greek debt crisis 2.1 Historical development: 2001-2008/09 In 2001 Greece became the twelfth member to join the Euro zone and was permitted to use the Euro (€) as its currency. Greece joined the Euro zone because of the benefits associated with being part of the Euro area. These benefits were essential to the economy of Greece who had a record of unpredictable inflation (Gibson, Hall & Tavlas, 2012). In addition, after Greece changed to the Euro they had the freedom to borrow money from foreign capital markets. During 2003-2007 government records showed Greece to be growing at 4% a year which gave investors’ confidence and made Greek bonds a popular investment. However, Greece falsified its debt to seem more financially secure. This misrepresentation led to Greece debt position being hidden which made the country seem more attractive to investors (Wong, 2014). During 2008 Greece could not borrow any longer as they were affected by the recession and drifted further into debt. The Greek debt crisis led to the first of...
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...caused by the government spending too much and borrowing too much money. The economy collapsed causing the banks to be insolvent. Before the collapse banking was conservative. When a nation has insolvent banks belonging to the Euro zone make that problem much worse. There were silent funs on Greek banks, with capital flight; people are pulling their money out of the Greek banks and sending it elsewhere, making the Greek economy worse. The common currency zone escalates the problems. There are also capital and trade imbalances. Germany is exporting a great deal more than it imports, causing capital flows into Germany. Spain and Greece import more than they export so capital flow is out of the country. They need to become more productive at exporting, which is not always easy. In the 2000’s money flowed into periphery countries, borrowing rates were low and capital inflow brought rising standards of living. By 2010’s money was flowing out of the periphery countries and back into Northern Europe. Periphery economies were starved for investment borrowing at high rates. The problems are made worse by belonging to a common currency area. There is no exchange rate to adjust. The fiscal crisis came about because some governments in the Euro zone have run up bills that now need to be repaid. They spent more money than they have been taking in, in terms of tax revenue. Greece’s band spending behavior was the upfront problem that led to...
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...Euro-zone Debt Crisis Weighs on Germany Economy By Christopher Lawton Published August 13, 2012 Dow Jones Newswires The German economy likely escaped contraction in the second quarter, but hopes that Germany could be spared the effects of the sovereign debt crisis and keep the euro zone out of recession have probably been dashed, analysts say. Germany's preliminary second-quarter gross domestic product, the broadest measure of a country's economic output, likely rose by 0.2% on the quarter, according to 27 analysts surveyed by Dow Jones. Germany's Federal Statistics Office, Destatis, is due to release the data at 0600 GMT Tuesday. In the first quarter, output had risen by a surprisingly robust 0.5%. Germany's Economics Ministry on Friday said the economy likely grew modestly in the second quarter thanks to exports, which rose 1.6%, and to private domestic consumption. That was in line with an earlier statement from the Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, which had noted that growth in the construction and the service sector offset weakness in industrial production. Destatis won't provide a full breakdown of its data until August 23. Economists warn that a string of economic data and surveys suggest even this modest economic growth pace won't last. Economic growth outside of Europe is moderating, reducing demand for German exports, while the confidence-sapping effects of the euro-zone debt crisis are finally reaching the country, long seen as immune...
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...The Euro-zone is a failed monetary union Euro Zone was formed as an economic and monetary union of 17 European states that adopted Euro as their common currency. Its aim was to provide integrated financial markets and improved economic stability and growth in these countries. But it failed miserably in this role. Initially when the global outlook was rosy, Eurozone countries reaped benefit from it in the form of highly stable currency, low prices and lower interest rates, which ultimately resulted in economic prosperity and rapid growth and development of these economies. But the Eurozone faltered when it faced the global slowdown and mayhem in financial markets all over the world. The more vulnerable nations like Greece, Portugal and Italy which had high debt to GDP ratio, were the first to get affected. Greece borrowing costs increased sharply and there was high level of unemployment. This soon spread to other nations. To prevent these members from defaulting and to keep the euro zone, Germany and France had to intervene. They along with the troika of EU, IMF and ECB made multiple liquidity injections into the weak economies of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. Still these nations had to struggle to survive the burden of Eurozone. Eurozone was envisioned to assist its member countries in times of crisis and help them come out of it. But, when the crisis struck, Greece and other countries started looking a way out of the zone. This was the big failure of Eurozone. In spite...
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...ECB is finally making its move towards addressing the very objective it takes more seriously, ie, an inflation target of 2%. And it couldn’t have come any sooner. Last year inflation in the euro zone was negative with a deflationary spiral luring closely behind. By injecting more money into the economy Mario Draghi, ECB’s president, hopes to achieve spurring growth and inflation, much like what the programs have done in America and Britain. But more importantly, Mr. Draghi cannot implement policies on the same terms. Instead of dealing with just one central bank and one federal government, he has to take 19 into consideration. A big-bond buying programme in a monetary union is very problematic, especially due to varying creditworthiness among its member countries, ranging from triple-A for Germany to junk for Greece. But the main issue that has been on the table of discussion is simply risk. Or more precisely, how risk-sharing among the members should be distributed, in case a country defaults on their debt. In other words, who has to open up their wallet the most. The country that especially has been stalling the program is Germany, simply because they cannot come to terms with the ECB and Mr. Draghi. They fear that their taxpayers, including union members, will have to cover the future losses of the ECB. Since the Bundesbank normally would expect to shoulder a quarter of the losses incurred by the ECB, they have cause for concern. What ECB eventually did is a compromise on...
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